One Ecker Place has officially changed hands. And as a plugged-in tipster noted earlier this week, the sales office is positioning for a September grand (re)opening.
Asking $450,000 to $1,400,000 for the 475 to 1270 square foot units in 2008, the 51 condos are expected to be priced “in the $650 a-square-foot range, with the largest two-bedroom corner units priced about $800,000” in 2010 (i.e., reductions of around 40 percent).
The new owner paid $14 million for the building and is planning on spending another $5 million to finish construction and market the property. The previous owner had purchased the building for $13 million and invested the proceeds of a $15 million note converting the building to residential before losing the building to the bank.
The history in headlines and links:
∙ A Heller Manus Renovation Of 1 Ecker Place [SocketSite]
∙ One (1) Ecker Place Update: Sales Office Open (And A Few Details) [SocketSite]
∙ The SocketSite Scoop On One (1) Ecker Place: Going Condo Rental [SocketSite]
∙ The Scoop On One (1) Ecker Place Redux: Going Condo Rental Condo [SocketSite]
∙ As One Ecker Turns (Our Fourth Update): Selling In Receivership [SocketSite]
∙ As One Ecker Turns (Over): Lender Forecloses As Nobody Bids [SocketSite]
∙ Pauls scoops up SoMa condo site [San Francisco Business Times]
Basically they got the building 1/2 price and could be selling at 35% discount compared to the original asking.
$650/sf sounds more manageable. Still a bit pricey to really compete with rentals, imho. monthly HOA dues will determine part of that. I hope they get them to a low enough level. This is the killer for many of these condos.
The original expectations were ridiculous. The market took care of that.
We looked at these in 2008, but came to the conclusion that the developers were incompetent, criminal or both.
The idiot agent we had – on a trial basis – tried to negotiate “upgrades” and assured us that there was no possibility of a price reduction. When we saw the contract – and the non-description of the HOA – we knew these folks weren’t to be taken seriously. We never again considered the agent or 1 Ecker. It’s a pity; there’s a lot to like about the location and the apartments.
The Zephyr realtor made us suffer through a Power Point presentation claiming that RE only goes up, which made me spit up at the time. I know others he talked into ridiculously stupid purchases. I hope he’s starting his traineeship at TacoBell, the only job he can get after serving time for that Power Point deck.
I’m so glad the bubble burst. I’ll never again offer a realtor more than minimum wage for opening the doors and printing the documents, and even that will feel like charity.
Thank god for the internet. Thank god for Redfin -not because it’s so great, but because it’s the beginning of the end for the venial parasites who call themselves realtors.
This is a positive development IMO
I think that there will be real demand for housing such as this, if the price is right.
It is a good thing that we could get the property out of the weak hands and into another who can hopefully finish the product and bring it to market
one of the worst parts of our predicament is that we had massive misallocation of our resources into housing, and the wrong types of housing. Then the govt bailouts and bank accounting gimmicks has kept these resources vacant.
if we are going to build housing we might as well put people into it! especially in a city with a housing crunch like SF
Great news! Looking forward to welcoming more folks into the Rincon Hill neighborhood area of SoMa.
This is considered Rincon Hill? At half a block off Market Street, I’d call it Financial District.
Even at $650 these things are overpriced. Cramped. No views. No parking. Neighborhood dead in the evenings.
I love brick buildings and am glad this one was kept around – but much more needs to be done to make this a great property. Not likely now…
I see they have a placeholder website up and running:
http://1ecker.com
Views, if you can call them that, are window coverings of your neighbors across the so-called “courtyard”, which they creatively dubbed “visual courtyard”, because it is for display only. Seriously, this place should be a high-end rental instead, given the lack of view and parking at this price. But what do I know! All units on the top floor are sold, and all one-beds are gone too. But I wonder why folks wouldn’t go across market and get bigger places with better views and parking, albeit at a slightly older building. Is there such a thing as a ÿeng-Sing”premium, like the dim-ssum there?